Sister of Ice
by igetupat3amtowrite
Summary: A dark force has managed to escape into Ninjago, having read the Golden Prophecy, intending to kill the one who will eventually kill him. Meanwhile, Lin Zhang remains oblivious and goes on with her normal life...until a quick turn of events turns her life completely around. If she and her friends ever make it out alive, she'll never be the same again. None of them will.
1. The Attic Portal

I'm the daughter of an actress and a construction worker. I still remember the day my life changed. It was the eighth of January. I lived in a small city in the state of Michigan. The life I led before was a quiet and peaceful one. On the day it all changed, I found out who I was, and where I came from. I also found a new family. I remembered who I was before I came to this world. Most importantly, I was bound by a prophecy that was written. There's no escaping it. Soon enough, I was sucked into another place, another world, and from then on, I had to fight to see another day.

I had to fight to see my new family live. My heart, soul, and my body had taken many batterings. It's tattered and torn. But it still works. My heart can still love, my soul can still live, and my body can still move.

My name used to be Lin Zhang, a quiet girl from a small city in Michigan. When I met my new family, I'm Calissa Julien, sister of a nindroid.

Now? Now, my name is Calissa Zhang, a warrior. Soldier.

A survivor.

This is my story.

. . .

"Lin? School's canceled!" my mom yells, as I brushed my teeth at the sink in the morning. "Why don't you go outside and shovel the snow?"

I rinsed out my mouth, allowing me to talk.

"I'll get it done!" I shouted back downstairs.

 _Yes!_ I loved the snow. It was cold, beautiful, and it was quiet. I walked back into my room and threw on a coat, my earmuffs, and warm socks. I hopped down the stairs and put on my boots.

I opened the garage door and waited for my parents to leave for work. My mom and dad kissed me and each other goodbye. My mother was holding her laminated script in her arms, and I glimpsed the title of the project she was working on. "Warrior of Ice," I muttered. My mom smiled.

"Isn't it amazing? My first real movie."

"Sweet. Can't wait to see it."

"I'll see you later. Don't open the door for anyone, and if there's a package for your father, don't open the door until the mailman is gone. Make sure the sliding glass door and the windows are locked and the blinds are down if you go into your room. If there's anything you need, call your father, then me. Love you!"

I waved, as they left and I grabbed a shovel. I looked around, admiring the smooth sheets of snow. I looked up at the roof, to find icicles hanging from it. I smiled to myself. I stabbed the thing into the snow, scooping it up. I dumped it onto the sides of the driveway, and a cold wind blew past my face. I loved it.

I kept working and working until the entire driveway was cleared up. Then, I stared at Hannah's driveway, and my neighbors'. No problem. It was late afternoon by the time I finished with all of it. I walked back into my garage and left my shovel there.

Then, I shut my garage door with the keys and walked down the hill on which my house and many other homes were perched on. Snow starts gently falling so I took off my ear muffs, folded them, and stuck them in my pocket. I don't bother putting on my hood. I liked it when it fell onto my pitch black hair. It looked amazing.

"Hey, Linny!"

My ears seemed to have perked up at the sound of his voice.

"Brent!"

"Where are you going?!" he shouted from his driveway.

"I'm going into the woods!"

He looked at me weirdly, with a sloppy sort of smile. "Can I join?"

"Sure!"

He went back inside his house, and I see him grabbing his camera.

Brent is an aspiring photographer. He loved taking photos of anything, and when he does, it's always beautiful. Usually, he photographs scenery and animals. Today, when he came out with his camera, he snapped a photo of me. I hadn't noticed until he tapped my shoulder, and held up a picture of me.

Snow littered my hair, and I looked off to the side, seeming to be staring at something. I wasn't posing. I was literally staring at a pile of dirty snow, daydreaming.

"You look pretty in this one," he comments.

"Thanks." I messed up his tousled hair, which shook the snow from it. He laughed a little.

We kept walking, letting a peaceful silence hang over us. Then, he breaks it. "I can't believe it. After this summer, we'll be sophomores."

"I can't believe it either. For now, let's just let our high school baby us. The chocolates that the juniors give us are too good to give up."

"They give it to you because you're pretty," he says.

"And they give it to you because the girls think you're hot."

"Maybe because I am," he says in the most stuck up way possible. He struck a weird pose and did a duck face. "Photograph me like a model, and put me on the cover of a magazine!"

"Oh, heck no, you look hideous!"

He lost his pose and burst out laughing.

When we reached the bottom of the hill, we made a right, then continued walking until we were at a dead end. We walked behind the wooden fence, and I began climbing a tree.

"Lin, what are you doing?!"

"I'm going to space," I yell back down sarcastically. "What does it look like I'm doing?!"

"Why are you climbing a tree?!"

"Because the view is _amazing_ from up here! C'mon!"

"If I slip and die, it's your fault!" I heard scratching from below. I climbed higher and higher until I reached a big branch where I sat down. I looked down, he was struggling to get up, and I couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Be careful!" I shouted down to him.

"Don't distract me!" he yells through gritted teeth. He shuffled up and I watched as he did his best to get up here. I held out my hand to him, and he took it, grateful to be relieved of something that he wasn't prepared to do.

He sat next to me, hugging the tree and I could see him trembling in fear. He still had his camera with him though.

"Snap a few pics so you won't have to do this again!"

I put a hand on his shoulder and he slowly moved one hand to grab his camera. Those were probably the fastest snaps I've ever seen him take. "Okay, C'mon, let's go down!"

"Wait! Hold on. Look!" I pointed at the scene that was laid out before us. Slowly, his fear slipped away from him, and he gazed at out at the image, taking it all in.

"Woah," he says, breathlessly.

"Yeah."

No trees obscured our view, and we remained silent as we watched our city come to life, as more and more cars started coming into view. Some were going to work, while the others were going to school. But every car had a destination, somewhere they need to go. Doors to stores and cafes opened up, and the lights flickered on. A trickle of customers was coming in one by one, and the snow kept falling gently. There wasn't much wind, and the weather seemed perfect...for a day in winter.

In other words, it was absolutely stunning and beautiful.

"I guess it really is kind of pretty."

We stared at the picture from our little perch in the tree, for a little while more, then, climbed down.

"Lauren's coming over soon."

"Sweet. Unfortunately, I'm kind of busy, so maybe next time."

"Yeah."

"Also, a blizzard is due to happen this afternoon. Stay inside, and don't go anywhere. Remember the last time you were outside?"

How could I forget? I had run outside when the snow started falling and the next thing I know, I was stuck in a storm. My mom and dad had been out working that day, and fortunately for me, Brent had heard me shrieking my head off. He managed to dig me out and bring me to his house and the first thing I said was,"Now that I think about it, I could have made a small igloo."

"That snow was piled up all the way to your chest, Lin," he says, suddenly serious. "You could've gotten hurt and/or died out there!"

"You're right. But you know what's really strange? I didn't feel cold at all. Like, I wasn't freezing like I should have been."

"Which made me worry even more. Seriously, you had no idea about the panic I felt the moment I saw you like that trapped in the snow."

"Okay, Brent, I promise you, you won't find me trapped in the snow like that again. Okay? I don't want you to worry about me. And besides, I'm not nine anymore."

"I know. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya!"

If we had known what was to come that day, we would not have let go of each other that easily. We would have never waved goodbye for the last time before this whole ordeal began.

And by the time we make it out of it, we would never be the same again.

When we waved goodbye that day, we didn't know we were waving goodbye to everything that we had ever known.

I did not think of any of that when Lauren's car rolled up in my driveway. She stepped out and slammed her car door shut.

"Make sure you make it home safely! Don't drive too fast, and stay on high alert! There'll be a snowstorm, and I want you to be home by the time it hits!" she says.

Her mom laughs. "You're more like a mother than I am right now, Lauren."

"Bye, mom!"

We headed inside and took off our boots at the entrance. We hung our coats on the coat rack, and I turned the heater back on.

She had black hair like I do, and was a year younger than me. She was also shorter than I was.

"So, how's high school? Is it like those cliches in the movies?"

"No, actually. I thought it was going to be like that too, but I was wrong. Way wrong. Netflix?"

She nods. "What do you want to watch?"

"Either drama or documentaries on anything. No insects, no bugs, and no spiders."

"That's literally what everyone is afraid of."

"So?"

"Documentaries on alternate universes?" she asks, hopefully. Stuff like this always gives her a sense of wonder. She loved to read about space. Anything was fine with her, and she now sat on the couch with both her legs up.

For a while, we watched and snacked on the sweets I had stolen from the pantry.

"Wow, these are really good!" she exclaims, munching on one of those cookies that we buy at Meijers. I loved those too.

"They're called Lofthouse cookies I think." I took a bite from a white chocolate chip cookie, as we kept watching.

No matter how many differences there were between the two of us, there was always one thing that would bring us together; sweets. We both had a sweet tooth and would crave anything with sugar in it. She loved mint chocolate, and I always liked white. We both liked cookies, and cake more than anything. I baked a lot at home, so we had an endless supply of sugary things but my parents always bought those soft cookies, Lauren was munching on, at Meijers.

Then, I remembered that Costco pizza was left out on the table because my parents forgot to put it away.

We ate all of that too. It was like heaven.

After we ate nearly everything, she helped me clean up, and we continued watching...until the tv conked out.

At first, I tried to fix it, but then, the temperature in the house started to drop. There was no electricity, and the storm blocked the sunlight. It was dark.

We headed to the kitchen to find some flashlights and turned those on.

"Hey, you want to do something stupid?" she asked.

"Sure." There wasn't much to do anyway.

"You want to go to the attic?"

. . .

"Ready? You push me up first, and I'll pull you up."

"Alright." I lifted her up and threw her into the ceiling, and she barely made it. Her legs dangled from the trapdoor and she pushed until they were out of view.

"It's dusty in here!" she says.

"I'll jump."

"Don't break my arm."

"I probably will."

"Hurry up."

I jumped, and she catches my arm, yanking me up. She was strong, being on the swim team and weightlifting in her free time. When I got up, she handed me my flashlight, and I turned it on. The room was dusty, and my heart hammered a little in my chest. We swept our flashlights around the silent room. Then, we started walking.

"I think this might call for the knives," she mutters silently.

I nodded, and I pulled it out. "Hold it tight, and don't let it go."

We continued walking down, and the floor creaked. I swept my flashlight in front of me. What I saw nearly gave me a heart attack. It was a door. I tried not to let the panic show on my face. I could hear both of our heavy breathing.

"We've made it this far, Lin."

I nodded. No turning back now. My hand trembled as I went to place it on the doorknob.

"Count of three...One..."

We steeled ourselves, and she grabs onto my arm in case anything happens.

"Two..."

I dug my heels into the floor.

"Three!" I flung open the door, not knowing what to expect, and scrambled away from it.

A burst of white light flooded into the attic, and I stumbled back. The temperature in the room suddenly dropped, and for a moment, Lauren and I were speechless.

The white light swirled around inside the door, and there was the sound of cold wind blowing around.

"Is that outside?!" she yells.

"Lauren, you've lived here for thirteen years, and you still don't know that snow doesn't work like this?!"

"It's a possibility!"

"What the hell is it?!"

"It's...a portal!" she says, trying to believe what she was seeing. I can't blame her. Was I hallucinating? I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but there was no drawing out the sound. This was real.

I looked at the swirling vortex, wondering if we should turn back. But in the back of my mind, I felt calm. Something was drawing me to it. It was like someone was reaching out their hand, waiting for me to take it. The feeling was stronger as I stepped closer to it.

"I think we should go in."

"What?!"

"Lauren, come on!"

She hesitated, shivering.

"How will we know what's on the other side if we don't find out for ourselves?"

She huffs. "Fine! Just...just hold my hand and don't let go," she says, childishly.

I gripped her hand hard, trying to reassure her.

"Ready? Go!"

I pushed myself off from the floorboards and towards the portal. As quickly as we had jumped, we exited on the other side, and fell flat onto the ground, knocking the breath out of both of us.

The floor was stone cold, and I pushed myself up onto my knees and looked around.

Cement walls surrounded us, and there were red pillars that divided them evenly. Perched on top of the pillars, were the wooden heads of golden dragons with their mouths open as if ready to spit out fire. In front of me was a huge building that looked very much like an ancient temple, and there was a front porch that was painted red. Made sense. Red was painted for good luck. Behind was a huge red wooden door, with rings for handles.

"Where's the snow?!" was the first thing Lauren screeched when she looked around.

I shushed her. "We could be in someone's backyard!"

"But the snow!"

"We'll figure that out, once we get out of here!"

"Fine! Speaking of which, where are we?!"

"Just help me with the handle!" I pulled on one of the rings, expecting it to open, but it didn't. I tried the other one. It didn't budge. Locked. "It's locked."

"What do you mean it's locked?!" she yanked on the handle, but it didn't move.

"You're here." A voice startled us, and we whipped around.

An old man with a long white beard and a straw hat held a staff, as he walked towards us.

"Who-who are you?" Lauren stammers.

"You're curious, are you? That's good."

"...Thanks?"

"Come inside. We've been expecting you."

"Who else is with you?" I ask.

"That question will be answered later. For now, come inside."

"Hold up, we don't even know who you are!" says Lauren.

"My name is Sensei Wu. Now follow me," he says again, patiently.

"What if we don't?" she snapped.

"Lauren!" I whispered to her angrily. "Stop trying him!"

The old man merely laughed. "I can see that you're the more mature one."

"Excuse you?" Lauren says.

"Let's just follow him inside, okay?" I told her, not wanting to anger the old man. When he turned his back to us to lead us into the temple, I glared at her.

He slides open the door, and I slide it shut behind us, as we walked down a hallway. It looked like the inside of the temple, and everywhere, it smelled like incense. It reminded me of my home.

"This place is beautiful," I say out loud.

"Thank you. My father built it all by himself."

"That's amazing."

He slid open another door and stepped inside. There was a table, and two benches on either side of it. There was another boy who had black tousled hair that stuck up in every possible direction and looked like he could be a sophomore.

"Stay in here while I go get your rooms ready."

"Thank you for your kindness, but we could really do it ourselves," I say.

"No, no. It's okay. I'll get it ready. In the meantime, just stay in here."

He slides the door shut, and we slump into the bench on the other side of the table. As soon as it slid shut, the boy speaks up. "He got you too?" he says rudely.

"You sound bitter," I commented.

"You would be too if your little sister got kidnapped by a bunch of skeletons."

"Skeletons?"

"I knew you wouldn't believe me. Anyways, how did you get here?"

"Lauren had the great idea of going into our attic when the electricity conked out because of the snowstorm. So in the attic, we found a door. We opened it, and stepped inside."

"Smart move."

"Shut up. Anyways, here we are."

"Curiosity kills the cat," he mutters.

"But satisfaction brought it back!" I finished.

"Touche."

. . .

Lauren was in her room, dancing and lip syncing to the music that she was listening on her phone with her earbuds on. I sat in my room wondering if it was all real. Was it? About seven hours ago, Lauren and I were still gorging ourselves on snacks in my living room. It's wild how things can change so fast. I had gotten used to the smell of incense now. At least that was one thing that reminded me of my home.

Kai was the boy's name. He had lost his sister, Nya in a fight that had ensued in front of their blacksmith shop. The only thing he could remember anyone saying as they took her was, "Lord Garmadon."

I swear, I heard that somewhere before.

Someone suddenly cried out, jerking me out of my thoughts.

I rushed outside, wondering what was going on, and slid open the door. "Oh-oh my god."

Kai and about three other ninjas were rolling around on the floor, fighting.

I swallowed hard, as I tried to contain my panic. Who were they?! And what would they want?! Don't panic. Don't panic. I cleared my mind only a little, allowing me to think. Maybe I should get that old guy! "Sensei!" I yelled.

That was the first time I saw an old man come running outside. "Enough!" he shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls. And I never knew he could yell that loud too.

Almost immediately, the got up and bowed down. "Yes, Sensei," they all said in unison.

"They're with you?! How come you never told me?!"

"That was part of your final test, Kai."

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"About a week."

My mouth dropped open a little and glanced one of the ninjas staring at me strangely and they all took off their masks except for the one looking at me. I stared back, noticing his icy blue eyes. They looked even more familiar to me, and I tried to remember where I had seen that. The one on the far right looked a bit like me. Dark eyes, black hair. The rest of him completely different. He had bushy eyebrows, a strong, athletic build, broad shoulders, and the most serious face I have ever seen. The one next to him was different. It was his complete opposite. He was a bit short, had brown hair, brown eyes, looked small, and childish.

"You four are chosen to protect Ninjago."

"What about my sister?!" Kai hissed.

"Ohh, is she pretty?" the brown haired one piped up. He had a light voice like a child.

" _What did you just say?!_ "

"Nothing. Nothing," he says timidly, backing off. Then, he looked at me and whistled. I glared at him.

"Jay!" the one with the black hair scolded. "You can't just whistle at her! You barely even know her!"

"Sorry, but she looks really pretty!"

"I'm flattered, but that was really childish," I snapped.

"Quiet." Sensei's words were like authority to them and we both obeyed. He walked over to them, then paused, looking at the one nearest to him. The one ninja still had his mask on.

All of a sudden, the Sensei transformed into a tornado. I jumped and backed up against the wall. The tornado was golden, and it passed by all four of them, leaving them with different colored ninja suits. There was a white one, Kai was red, Jay was blue, and the guy with the black hair had black.

"Zane, Kai, Jay, and Cole," he says, introducing me to them. Somewhere, somehow, the first name sounded familiar to me.

"Everybody, this is Lin."

I waved a little, and Jay waved back, smiling. The white one waved at me but it was a small one. He shuffled his feet and kept looking at me. I thought I heard him whisper it. "Lin..."

"Cole will be your leader when I'm not there. You will all listen to him," he says, pointing at the ninja in black.

I nodded along with the other four. The white one kept staring at me. "That is all for tonight. Kai, Jay, follow me. Kai, you will explain to her what I've said tonight. We'll get your sister as soon as these two are trained. About a week. Like you. Jay...it's about time you met her. The rest of you, are dismissed."

Kai, Jay, and Cole sauntered back inside, and Sensei was about to follow.

"Wait. Sensei." The white one finally spoke, and now, I was the one staring at him. He had a quiet, and misty voice. I was beginning to get a little frustrated. I have heard that voice before! But where?!

"Yes?"

"Is...is that her, Sensei?" he says quietly, pointing at me.

"Me?"

"Yes. I will let you have more time alone. You can go to bed at midnight, and tomorrow, you can train her."

He nods, but still, that wasn't enough to satisfy him. "Was Lin her name in the other world, Sensei? It wasn't Calissa?"

"Yes. This is her."

"Wait, hold up...what are you guys talking about?"

"I will let Zane explain everything to you."

I nodded hesitantly, and he walks inside. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down on the porch. He walks over to me, and that's when I noticed that he was really tall. He was quiet, and he kept looking at me. "Take off your mask." He pulled down his mask and slid back his hoodie. "Who are you?" I ask.

"I'm Zane."

"No, I meant like...nevermind."

He looks at me for a moment. "Your eyes look pretty."

"Thank you."

We stared at each other awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. "Come sit down." I patted the spot next to me. He hoists himself up and sits next to me.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

"So...where did you live before you got here?"

"I lived in a small town. Michigan. It's nice there, with all the snow and stuff."

He looked at me blankly. "What's a Michigan?"

My mouth dropped open slightly. "It's...a place. You know, in America."

He looked at me, still confused. "America? What's that?"

I tried to hide my shock. "It's...a country. Where I live."

"Oh."

"You don't know what America is?"

"I do," he replies.

"What?"

"Didn't you just tell me that it was a country?"

"Oh, yeah, but... nevermind."

"Why do you always say that?" he asks.

"What?"

"Nevermind."

"I said it only twice."

"Oh."

An awkward silence hung over us. "So, how did you get here?"

"It's...kind of a long story."

"Well, we've got until midnight, so you can fill me in."

He hesitated a little but began. "I woke up on the side of the road...I didn't know where I was, or how I got there...I was bleeding, and coughing blood...I remembered that it was freezing that day. That's all I can remember. I heard someone screaming my name inside my head. That's how I knew my name. A kind fellow had rushed outside from his house. He got me up and brought me inside his house where he fixed me up. He told me, I had gotten into a fight."

"A fight?"

He nodded. Then, his voice went quieter. "He told me that I looked like I was trying to protect someone. A little girl..." He looks into my eyes, as he tries to describe me. "A little girl with black hair, brown eyes, and an innocent, gentle face."

I stayed silent, listening to him.

"But this wasn't just any fight. There was...magic involved. One of them had thrown something deadly at you. I...I jumped in front of you...that's when I got hit, he said...I couldn't get up after that..."

"Me."

"Yeah, you."

"So you've met me before..."

"Yeah."

"But I don't remember you at all."

"Of course you don't. I don't remember meeting you either," he says, shrugging.

"Then how?"

"I guess...our memories have been erased."

"Erased," I repeated, unable to believe this guy.

"To be honest, I'm still trying to work through this. It's going to take some time. I'm still trying to connect all the dots."

"Okay...Keep going."

"He watched as they opened the portal. You ran to my side, as you screamed and cried. Then, one of them tore you away from me. He said that he shoved you into a portal. Just like that, you were gone, and I was left bleeding on the ground. I've been searching for you for years ever since."

"You've been searching for me for years?!" Somewhere, somehow, I felt concerned for him. "Are you alright now?"

He just pulls up his shirt, and a bandage stained with blood was visible on his abdomen. I tried not to panic.

"You've had that for years?"

"What? Oh, no. This was just a little accident from this week when I wasn't fast enough to dodge an ax. It didn't cut too deep. Still, it hurts a lot."

"Oh my gosh."

"I'll be fine...don't worry." He looked at me in confusion for some reason, and I could almost see his mind reeling.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah...it's just...I've never really had anyone care about me like this before."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I've never had a father or a mother, or at least I don't remember having one. So no one really...worried about me. But the thing is, I think after all these years, I think...that I've finally found someone who cares about me. You."

I couldn't help but feel horrible knowing that I would say that to anyone and that he wasn't anyone special to me. I didn't remember anything about ever meeting him. I've always lived in Michigan. I lived there my whole life! "I don't remember you though."

"Me either!"

"Then why did you want to find me? Was I like your girlfriend or something?"

"No!"

"Then why?! Why did search for me for years?!"

He sighs, frustrated. "Because-because you're my sister!"

I scooted immediately away from him. "I'm your _what_?"

"My sister!"

I got up, from my spot heading for the door, having no intention of staying on the porch any longer. "I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong girl."

"No, wait!" He gets up and grabs my hand but doesn't pull me back.

"I'm not your sister!" I shouted at him.

"Yes, yes you are!" he yelled back.

"I don't even remember you!"

"I don't either, but it _i_ _s_ you!"

"How do you know?!"

"I just...I just do!"

"You didn't even remember what I looked like!"

"I know I didn't, but I know it's you! I know it's you, Lin!" he says with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Prove it then! Prove it!"

He hesitated to let go of me as if he was afraid I was going to leave him there if he lets go. But he does anyway and shoves his hand into his pocket hurriedly. He pulls out a piece of laminated folded paper. "H-here!" he says, fumbling with it.

He hands it to me, and I unfolded it. It was a drawing of a girl. Black hair, brown eyes, and a gentle and innocent face. It was a drawing of me. Okay, I'm not going to lie when I say that I was thoroughly creeped out. It was the younger version of me.

"When did you draw this?!" I yell at him angrily.

"I didn't draw it!"

"Who?!"

"It was the guy that took me in! He's-he's a writer, inventor, an artist! I asked for a picture of what the girl looked like, and that's what he drew!"

"He drew this of me," I stated.

"Yes!"

"And you've been carrying this thing around for years?!"

"Yes! I've been waving that picture at people's faces ever since I left to go find you! Do you know how many miles I walked? How many times someone mugged me because I didn't have anything to defend myself-"

"You got mugged?!"

"Yes! I spent countless nights sleeping in the streets, sometimes, I starved. I was all alone and you know what kept me going? Knowing that I have someone out there in the world that if I-I somehow met, then they would care about me, and I would take care of them. I would protect them with everything I had. And you know who that person is?" He pointed at the picture. "This girl. You. You're what kept me going. If that guy never told me I had a little sister, then I don't even know if I would be here right now!"

I stared at the picture, not believing what I was hearing.

"Zane, is that your name? I have doubts." I sighed and sat back down.

He sits down next to me but this time, he's closer. "I know you do. I was a bit skeptical at first too. I laminated it because I was afraid. I was afraid I was going to lose it. I hung on to it like it was made out of gold. And I guess the only things I had with me, was my name, and that picture."

I handed the picture back to him, and he puts it back into his pocket. "You said that you were skeptical too when you first heard the news. So how does this prove I'm your sister?"

"There's something else the man saw and heard that day. He said that one of them had shoved you so hard, you landed in a snow pile a good distance away. I screamed something. He told me I screamed, 'Don't mess with my sister!' then, someone started for you...with a knife. He said that I also screamed something else; 'That's my little sister! I said, don't lay a finger on her!' And, that's how I knew."

"How do you know if that guy is telling the truth?"

His face fell, and he grabbed my hand, holding it firmly, almost as if he was begging me. "I don't know if he's telling the truth. But I need someone...I've spent years without that someone, and that's you. I just...I just had to hang on to that hope, that there's someone out there, waiting for me. If the truth drops, and I find out that there's no one for me, then...I'll be kind of...lost."

"Zane, I know where you're coming from. But I just...can't believe this."

"Please. Do I at least look a bit familiar to you? Anything at all?" he pleaded.

Slowly, I nodded, and his face lit up with hope. "When I saw you, your eyes looked a bit familiar. And when you took off your mask, your hair and your face were familiar, I guess. And then your voice too."

I could see the hope building up inside of him, and noticed that we were sitting very close together. I yawned a little, and my eyes felt a little heavy. "I'm going to bed."

"Can I carry you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Jay says that you carry someone somewhere they want to go if you care about them. I care about you."

"Umm. Okay-" Before I could finish my sentence he scooped me up with one swift motion, and carried me inside. "You don't have to do this you know."

"Yes, I do. I...love you. You're my sister. And I care about you."

"We don't really know for sure yet."

He manages to slide open my room door and sets me down on the mattress. "Thank you."

"No problem. Can I sleep with you too?"

"What?!"

"Jay says that I should sleep with someone I care about because I want them to feel safe and protected. I want you to feel safe and protected."

"And so I've noticed. But no. Not yet. Not until I get to know you better and find out you're actually my brother."

"Alright. If you need anything, my room is across from you."

I nodded.

"Oh, and what name do you prefer I use?"

I thought for a moment. "Calissa. Use that one. It's for this world."

"Can I call you Callie?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Zane."

He left the room, and I immediately fell back onto the mattress, exhausted. Sleep came to me not too long after.


	2. A Stick And a Dance

Lauren comes running into my room the next morning, looking excited. She had morning hair, wore her pajamas, and was barefooted when she came scrambling in.

"Lin, Lin! I have a brother!" she yells excitedly.

I rolled over, and groaned, trying to get back to sleep. "Get off of me," I mumble.

"I have a brother! Oh my gosh, I've always wanted one! Do you know how much this means to me?! This is amazing!" She kept rambling on and on about how she had always wished she had a sibling, while I managed to smile to myself just a little. I wanted a brother too. Now, I have Zane. My smile vanished when I remembered that what he told me could have been a lie that someone might have told him to keep him alive.

On the chance that I am not his little sister, then I don't know what I would do to comfort him. He was so full of hope last night and I didn't want to shatter it.

I got up, trying to get that depressing thought out of my head. What would he do if we find out we're not related? How would he react?

"Oh yeah, Lin? Zane told me to give these to you!" She handed me a turquoise ninja suit and a mask.

My hands reached out to take it, wondering if it was a gift from him. The fabric was soft and felt like velvet on my hands. I stared at it wide-eyed. It looked pretty. And I liked pretty things, but it gets me into trouble sometimes. Like that one time, I tried to pick a flower that had grown through a crack in the middle of the road and almost got hit by a car had it not been for Brent.

Instantly, I felt hollowed out. Brent. He was still back there, and my parents were too. They're probably worried sick about me. And Brent...

I shook that thought out of my head too and went into the bathroom to slip it on. When I did, the fabric felt amazing against my skin. It was stretchy and breathable. I could feel the wind through this thing. Now, there was only one more thing. I did my best to tie the mask onto my face and I pulled up the hoodie.

I smiled a little. I looked pretty darn good in this thing. I pulled down my mask and hoodie and stepped out with my clothes in my hands. "Oh!"

Zane was standing there in the doorway, leaning against the wall, which startled me a bit since I didn't hear him coming in from the bathroom. He took in what I was wearing, and smiled a little. It was warm and gentle. "Do you like it?" he asks hopefully.

"Yes. Yes, I do," I say gratefully, as I tossed my clothes onto my bed. "How much did it cost?"

He raised a brow. "It cost nothing. I made it myself. It took a while to get the hang of it. I poked myself a lot, but in the end, it was worth it."

"How did you know my size?"

"I didn't. So I just made a really lose one, hoping that it'll fit you. And it does, you just need to tie it in with a belt and you're good to go."

I just stared at the teenaged boy in front of me in gratefulness, and slowly, a small smile crept on to my lips. Who is this guy? I guess I really do need to get to know him more. "Thank you."

Again, he blushed. "No problem."

I looked at his hair. "Is it me, or does your hair just defies gravity like that?"

"It's just like that."

He leads me towards the dining room again, where there was an empty seat with a plate of waffles. Jay, Lauren, and Cole were gorging themselves while Kai just nibbled on his food. I took the empty seat next to Cole and took a bite into the waffle. Zane took the seat in front of me. "Your training begins today. You have to be ready for anything. If someone attacks you, you'll have to be able to defend yourself."

I nodded. I didn't really take in what he was saying since I was too busy focusing on the food, which tasted amazing.

He smiled a bit, as he took a bite. "You like it?"

"It's probably the most amazing thing I've tasted in my life."

He smiles again, blushing.

"Yeah, I know right?" Jay says, barging in. "He made it! But on the contrary, Cole here can't cook shit! He can't cook to save his own life!"

"Oh really?" Lauren asks, raising a brow.

"Excuse you, Jay, but I wasn't the one who put extra hot ghost peppers into the cake that I baked!" Cole snapped.

"That's what you get for eating my frozen yogurt from the fridge!"

"You didn't even have your name on it!" Cole sputters. "How was I supposed to know?!"

Lauren watched in amusement, as the two bickered back and forth. Zane and I finished our food and washed the plates.

"You two go ahead," she says.

He took the plate from me and put it in a cabinet before we headed outside.

"This is the courtyard," he says.

"Oh."

"What have you been calling it this whole time?"

"The Backyard."

"Anyways, here," he tossed me a wooden stick. "I don't want to cut you. Now, there's the block, and then there's attack..."

Little by little, he taught me what to do in specific situations and how to do it. By the time lunch was nearly there, I had most of the moves down.

"Okay, now I'm going to spar with you. Remember, keep your eyes on the target and the weapon-"

"Where else would they be?"

"-And remember to move as efficiently and quickly as possible. Also remember that you can kick, and punch. Pretend that I'm your worst enemy. I'll try to go easy since it's your first time. Ready?"

"No."

"Go!"

He charged at me and swung from the top. I brought up my stick at a diagonal, and his own stick slid right off. He brought it up this time, from the lower right, and I spun around to dodge it, and met his stick with my own, bringing it to the ground.

In my head, I imagined that instead of him who was fighting me, a monster was. That seemed to work and I tried to punch him in the face. He caught it in mid-air and pushed it back making me lose my balance a little. He took that chance and swung at me but I was ready. I stepped off to the side, and he stumbles past me, but before he could trip and fall, I spin and landed a roundhouse kick to his abdomen intending to knock out his breath.

That was a huge mistake.

He cried out in pain and collapsed, clutching at where I had kicked him. That's when I suddenly remembered that he had a bandage over a wound...that was on his abdomen. Panic surged through me, and I rushed to his side where he lay writhing on the floor. His head rested on my knee as if that would give him any comfort or lessen the pain.

"Oh my gods, I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to- OH MY GODS, IS THAT BLOOD?!"

The blood on his bandage seemed to grow a little and I watched in horror. Then, it stopped but not before I realized the damage that I had done. He winced.

"H-hey, Callie," he groans. Through his agony, he smiled at me. "You actually did pretty well."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Thank you, but YOU ARE BLEEDING TO DEATH, WE HAVE TO GET YOU INSIDE!" I screeched.

He grimaced, as I put one arm over and behind my neck and pulled him up. He gasped, and I definitely didn't take that as a good sign.

Right then, Kai came out with a sword and spotted us. "What happened to him?!"

"Do you have a healer here?"

Sensing my urgency, he ushered us inside. "Sensei!" he called out. The old man came running and took him groaning, from me.

"He'll be alright," he assures me. "It's nothing too serious. He'll be out in a half an hour."

I nodded grimly and walked outside to the porch to sit.

"Hey." Kai's hand rests on my shoulders.

"Yeah?"

"It's just training. I think he's gotten hurt before. Oh, hell's, Callie, or Lin, or whichever name you prefer, I got tossed into one of these walls a hundred times!"

"Okay."

"He'll be out. Don't worry."

He sits down next to me, and I scooted over to make space. "Don't you think that Zane is a bit weird?" he asks.

"Weird how?"

"Like he's so...distant, and cold...like he doesn't have emotions but then suddenly, you came along and then he started...feeling I guess."

"Huh."

He scooted closer to me and leaned in close. "Hey. Are you his girlfriend?" he asks quietly.

"What?! No!"

"Oh. Then what are you to him?"

Resenting his presence, I managed to grumble out some words. "He says I'm his sister."

"You don't sound or look too happy about that."

"No, it's not the sound of having a bigger brother that has me down. I've always wanted one. It's not knowing for certain if he is my brother or not. I don't know how he will react if he finds out I'm not his sister."

"Ah. Got it." He leaned back with his hands behind him. "You got a boyfriend yet?"

"Excuse you?"

"You got a boyfriend yet?" he repeated.

"Why do you care?"

"Just wanna get to know you better if we're going to be on the same team."

I sighed. "No. I haven't had one yet."

"Ah. Gotcha. So what was it like?"

"What?"

"What was it like living in the other world?"

"Well, I lived in a state called Michigan. The state is in a country known as America..."

"Okay. And?"

"It snows a lot."

"I've never seen it. I lived somewhere where it was hella hot. It was hot all year and my sister and I worked a blacksmith shop."

"A blacksmith shop? Where they make weapons?"

"Yeah."

"Sweet."

The door suddenly slid open and Zane stood in the doorway, looking as if I hadn't kicked him at all. "You ready to continue?"

"How-?"

He smiled. "You could say that there was a bit of...magic involved."

I raised a brow. "Do you know how to use it yet?"

"I can't do much. Only a small snowflake and Jay and Cole are having a hard time with it."

"Sounds like you're more of a leader than Cole is."

"I'm a fast learner."

"Then show me how to do the things you do."

He walks down the steps and picks up another stick. "I guess I can. But only as much as I know."

"Fair enough."

Kai headed back inside, leaving just me and him alone again.

"We'll take it easy first. I want to...talk about some things."

He hit me without really trying, and I blocked it.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

He thought for a moment. "...Have you ever...been in love before?"

I raised a brow. "No. Why?"

"Nothing. It's just that...while I was stuck on the streets, I've seen people together...they kiss...and they're happy." I tried to hit him from the side, but he easily blocks it. "And they dance."

"Have you ever danced with anyone before?"

He shook his head, spun, and brought the stick down on me which I sidestepped. "Sometimes, they danced very slowly. There was a park that I usually go to and I slept in the trees there. Sometimes, I would see a couple of people dancing very slowly as the sun sets or rises. And they watched it together. What's the word for it? Romance? I think." He swung his feet up slowly and pretended to kick me.

"Yeah. That's pretty romantic." I lunged forward and pretended to stab him. "Do you know how to slow dance?"

"No."

I dropped my stick and set his on the ground. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm teaching you how to slow dance. You need to when the right girl comes."

"Uhhh..."

I stepped in close. "You're supposed to put your hands...here." I placed his hands on my back and adjusted it. "And she or he is supposed to put their hands behind your neck."

He shifted uncomfortably. I paused.

"Maybe another time?" I asked, not wanting to make him do something he didn't want to do.

"No. Keep going. It's just that it feels like you're going to strangle me."

I laughed a little. "What? Your little sister strangling you? She'll never hurt you like that. C'mon. And then you move like this." I shifted my weight from left to right and we moved slowly around. "See? It's easy."

"Yeah."

"Find the pattern of their feet so you won't step on it. Okay, now be ready when the girl or guy does this." I rested my head on his chest, which startled him a little.

"Oh! Uhh..." He puts one hand behind my head, holding it close to him. "Like this?"

"Yes! Exactly." I pulled away from him gently. "Alright. I think we're done for now."

"Let's go back inside and take a break."

I nodded, agreeing with him and helped put away the wooden sticks. "What will happen when I'm ready to fight?"

"Then we'll go on our first mission. It'll be dangerous, but I'll be there to protect you if you need it."

We started heading back inside. "What will you do if I'm not your sister?"

He froze completely in the middle of the doorway. "I don't know," he replies quietly. "I just...don't want to be lost again." He didn't look at me when he said those words. Then, he shook his head and continued walking. I grabbed his hand which stopped him.

"You won't be. Because I'll be here for you."

He turns around, smiling. "Thank you."

. . .

About a week later, my fighting skills were a lot better, but Zane still won most of the time. Lauren's faring way better than I was but she got beaten by her own brother a lot too.

When Zane and I walked out to the courtyard to try to get some practice in today, she was chasing Jay around with a stick.

"What happened here?" I asked quietly, out loud.

Immediately, they stopped and turned to look at me.

"Jay told me I look and act like a spoiled baby brat," Lauren pouted.

"Because you are!" Jay snapped at her.

"Why don't you two calm down a little, and head inside?" Zane suggests calmly.

"Uhh, sure thing, weirdo," Jay murmurs.

I punched him in the arm as he walked by. "Ow," he whined.

After the door shut after them, we just stood there for a moment.

"Come here. I want to show you something," he says quietly.

"Is it something good?" I asked as he leads me up to the door. "Woah, wait, I've never been out there!"

"Well, that's great. I'll get to be the first one to show you!"

He pulls open the door with ease. "It takes someone strong to move these doors. Jay couldn't do it."

Oh. So that's why Lauren and I couldn't pull that thing open. When I stepped out, I gasped.

We were on a cliff. A few feet in front of me, there was a huge drop, I felt dizzy just looking at it. There was a single narrows staircase made out of rock that probably spiraled down the huge mountain we were on. The clouds were literally at the level at which we were standing at, and he had to hold me steady.

"Sit down."

I did as he told me to, but I leaned back against the wall.

"The view here is amazing once you stop thinking about the drop."

"Uh...yeah," I murmur nervously.

"I like to go here to think. I've been going here a lot more lately."

"This is probably a bad time to mention it, but the other guys think that you're weird."

He didn't say anything after that, but he just looked at the clouds, with a distant look in his eyes. "People have been thinking I'm weird my whole life. You get used to it after a while. Got shunned out of more places than I could count. The only place that didn't, was the park that I slept in."

I gulped, not sure of what to make of this new information.

"You ever been told that you were weird?" he asks me.

"Yeah," I reply. "I was quiet and distant. Like you. People didn't like that, so they started teasing me. It's just a little. But over time, it piles up you know."

And then just like that, I was confessing.

"They said that I was too quiet so they started trying to get me to talk by putting me into a debate class. I had to talk in front of everyone since I'm apparently the smart one because...because of my race. That place was a hell hole."

"Explain to me how."

"Lot's of stereotypes. And whenever I went up and talked, my hands would always shake really badly and I would start using a quiet voice without meaning to. Then there's the pressure. Everybody's eyes would be on me and if I messed up, then...that would be embarrassing. And I hate that. I quit that class as soon as it ended."

"What did you do after that?"

"Surprisingly, I took to theatre. It's strange, isn't it? I can't speak in front of twenty or so people, but I'm able to perform and exceed the director's expectations in front of thousands of people."

He nodded, agreeing with me. "Yeah."

There were a few more moments where we were silent. "Tomorrow is our first mission."

"The week went by fast."

"Yeah. Don't worry. I'll be there for you." His hand shifts over to mine, and he holds it, trying to give me reassurance.

"Thank you. But don't get hurt again. Your bandage just came off yesterday."

"I'll try not to."

In the morning, I would be off, on my first mission. I didn't think that I would be able to get any sleep tonight and I didn't expect to get it. Sensei said we all had to unlock a key to be able to do what he did. Honestly, I just wanted to go back home. Brent and my parents must be missing me terribly. And what if I couldn't go back?

My mind flashed back to when I waved goodbye to him. Would that be the last time I would say goodbye? Would that day be the last thing he remembers about me?

If it was, I would be a little happy. I would have spent my last moments with him, sitting close to him. _Close. We had always been close._ Maybe I'll ask about that later. Maybe there is a way back, but then, what about Zane?

I can't just abandon him like this! Should I take him back with me then? That sounds like a good idea, but then again, he might not want to.

I sighed, trying to clear my head, and decided to head back inside to wait it out. What else could I do?


	3. King of Skeletons

Sensei ordered for the boys to carry a small carriage containing him inside, and for me and Lauren to run alongside them, which I thought was pretty unfair. I had no idea why he would do something like this to us, but I had a feeling it was because of his old age, which wasn't his fault.

Zane and I decided to be half-siblings for now. Half related, half not because we had no idea if we were or not. My half-brother was at the front and did the carrying without a single word of complaint. He was...quiet.

While we ran, I found out how they all got to the same place where we were. Cole had run away from his father, and Sensei took him in after he climbed to the top of one of the tallest mountains here. I found out from him that this place we were in was called Ninjago.

Jay was summoned after he crashed through a billboard with a pair of wings he built himself.

Everyone got quiet when it was Zane's turn. "I was trying to make a small amount of money to keep me going, you know." He paused as he tried to gather his thoughts. "I had a special talent. I could stay underwater for longer than any other person I've ever encountered. They paid me a little to watch me do just that. One day, when I jumped in, Sensei was sitting there at the bottom waiting for me."

"What?"

"I was just as surprised as you all are. I think I nearly drowned that day because I was so startled. Started choking on the water, and had to come back up. Didn't get the money that day, but he put a roof over my head and that's good enough for me."

He silenced all of us with his story. The rest of us had a family. We all had a place to stay even if we didn't like it like Cole did but the only place Zane had been calling home for years was the streets of the city and the branches of trees in parks.

I glimpsed Cole looking down in shame realizing that he had been taking his parents and home for granted.

"Damn," I heard Jay whisper quietly.

He shrugged. "You get used to it after a while."

"Don't you have a family? A dad? Mom? Sibling?" Cole asked.

I saw his grip tightening around the wooden bar, turning his knuckles white. He glanced at me, quickly, but then looked back, focusing on the road. "I don't know," he says quietly. "Told the story many times before. Told my half-sister yesterday."

"Half sister?"

"Callie."

"Oh. But seriously, keep going."

"Woke up on the side of the road. It was cold, snowing."

Jay's eyes widened.

"I was bleeding from a wound and I was coughing up blood-"

"Woah, hey, backtrack. You were doing what?! You never told us that!"

"You never asked."

Jay huffed but didn't say anything after that.

"Stop," Sensei said suddenly. The others put down the carriage, and he leads us over to a huge boulder. The dirt road crunched under my feet, as I walked with them. I immediately regretted looking down the boulder once I got onto that thing.

Skeletons swarmed the area below. It was like a huge pit full of them, and they looked absolutely terrifying. They were typical skeletons but wore armor, and their eyes were pitch black with red pupils the color of dark, crimson, blood. Different weapons were sheathed into each one, and they wore a small ribbon the color of their Element on the right shoulder plate.

Behind them, there was a huge hole in an even bigger rock cave, and they looked as if they were trying to find something. They were carrying huge chunks of rock over to a conveyor belt where this huge machine broke it into a million pieces. Then, those pieces were loaded onto another conveyor belt, where workers sifted through them.

There was a single huge tower which I thought looked to be bad news.

"The Golden Weapon is in that cave. The skeletons can be manageable. There is a Guardian that protects it so be careful. That is my only warning. Once you retrieve it, do not use it. I repeat, do not use it."

"Why?" Kai asked.

"There are powers in that Scythe that have to be controlled. Cole needs to learn to harness that power and use it for good. The rest of you are only allowed to use it if a situation is hopeless. But for now, ignore my last sentence, and whatever you do, don't use it."

We nodded.

"Okay, first we need a plan-" Cole started.

"Hey, where's Kai?" Jay interrupted.

Slowly, we looked down into the pit, and to our horror, spotted a teenaged boy in a red ninja suit sneaking closer and closer to the cave, armed, but he was alone. If the skeletons spot him by any chance, then he would be as good as dead. Even with all his training, he was no match for hundreds of undead bones.

"Let's go!" Lauren whispered. She jumped down without a second thought and pulled her mask and hood up.

The rest of us did the same, and Jay ran off after her. Cole went down next but Zane hesitated.

"Stick close to me," he says.

We both jumped down and landed on the sand down below. Almost immediately, Zane pulled me back behind a large rock, just as a skeleton walked by.

He tapped me on the shoulder, and we tore after the rest of them. They were headed for the tower for some reason, but I didn't question it. In fact, I couldn't. I was in a pit full of skeletons, for goodness sake, and if that isn't enough to scare me, then they have axes, katanas, and knives literally sheathed _through_ their ribs!

That terrified me more than I would have liked to admit and in an attempt to shove that feeling down, I grabbed his hand and held it tight, which was a good thing since he was faster and pulled me along with him.

The others were already climbing up the tower when we reached it and hurried to join them. I wasn't really good at climbing things, and I had an uneasy feeling as if my hands or my feet would slip at any moment.

I guess I'll have to get Cole to teach me how to climb without killing myself.

When we got onto the roof, Kai stuck his katana into it, drew a circle, and Lauren and Cole yanked it out before it fell.

I wish I hadn't look down inside with them. The first thing I saw was a skeleton with four arms, and an abnormally shaped head with a bigger jaw that looked like it could snap me in half. His spine was made of deadly spikes, and he was a lot bigger and taller than the rest of them.

That thing was going to give me nightmares for the rest of the week.

I looked up, probably a little pale, and watched Zane tie a rope onto a shuriken. He threw it down onto a map that was sitting on a wooden desk and pulled it up.

"What's that?" I asked.

"A map," Jay answered.

I tried to figure that thing out, but that proved impossible. We all looked at it in confusion as we tried to decipher it, but in a few moments, Zane replied, "It's in the cave with a huge boulder blocking a secret entrance. My bet is on that."

Kai took off immediately, stealthily rushing to get inside.

"What the hell's up with that guy?" Jay says, exasperated.

We jumped down and followed him again, managing to avoid being spotted. My heart pounded the whole time, knowing that if we were caught, it's going to get ugly.

We found him inside, trying to push the boulder alone. I looked around, finding that the cave was larger than it looked on the outside. It was completely empty inside, which I thought was kind of off. Shouldn't those piles of bones still be working?

"Kai, you have to stay with us," Cole says, a little frustrated with him. "One wrong move, and we're all dead."

He sighed and stopped trying to move it. "All I want is to find my little sister, and be done with this whole thing."

"That's all you want?" Lauren asked, obviously annoyed.

"Yes!"

"And then you want to go back to being a blacksmith, and stay in the same place forever? That's it?"

"Well don't you have a family to go back to? Back through the portal? Don't you want to go back?!"

"I actually do, to be honest, but I also want to do something with my life! I want to go places, I want to see things! I don't want to stay and just sit there till I die! And you know what? I'm actually in the place I want to go, and I'm seeing the things I want to see!"

"Skeletons?!"

"They're not my kind of things I want to see, but they're something, and that's good enough for me!"

"Look, you guys, we have to hurry up with this, or we'll get caught. Now help me with this," Cole says, trying to push it.

We managed to move it enough so that we could fit through if we went in a single file line.

Inside, the ceiling was smaller, and in the middle was a huge pedestal. Carvings of pictures depicting a dragon decorated the walls, and me being me, I walked over to one of them and touched it gently with my fingers. How long has it been since someone had last been here? Who carved these pictures into the wall? And were they telling a story of some sort?

"Hey, Callie." Zane snapped me out of it and I looked to where Cole was taking it from the pedestal.

That's when I noticed that it wasn't just any normal looking thing. It was a dragon head, and Cole was on top of it. The floating Scythe glowed gold and was floating. He grabbed it and hopped back down.

We all circled around him, trying to get a closer look at it. A language that nobody knew was carved into the Scythe's handle, and at the top, there was a smaller dragon head with a blade sticking out of its mouth.

"Let's go," Jay said casually.

They started filing back through the entrance, but something caught my attention. I quickly looked back at the carvings, noticing that they were glowing gold too, making it easier to see.

There was a picture of the same dragon head, with the weapon floating above its mouth. Next to it was another scene, showing a stick figure holding the scythe, and the dragon head, rising up revealing its neck, wings, body, and its legs, ready to attack.

I gulped trying to shove down my panic as my head whipped around to look back at the dragon head. I stared at it, my heart pounding in my head.

Nothing.

I exited the room with them, but not before casting another suspicious look at it.

When we stepped out into the bigger cave, what I saw then would be seared into my head for forever.

An army of skeletons was staring at us, in an attack stance. Axes, spears, knives, and just about any weapon I could think of, were raised as if they were all thirsting for our blood to be spilled. At the front, was the big guy himself.

"Samukai," Jay whispered, his voice trembling at the thought of having to face him.

He smiled sinisterly. "What's wrong? Are you afraid?"

"That tends to happen when you're staring down a six-foot-tall skeleton with four arms," he replied too quickly.

"Well, I thank you for that, but I won't regret taking that golden thing off your leader's slain body."

We all drew our weapons, and my heart pounded a little faster. Oh goodness, do we really have to fight? I wasn't ready. At least not mentally. My hands gripped my katana, and they trembled. Those things were a lot more terrifying when they're ready to kill me.

"Stick close to me," Zane whispers under his breath.

What other option do I have?

For a few moments, the whole place was quiet. Kai and Samukai were death glaring each other and if looks could kill, they would both be dead already.

"Ready to die?" Samukai sneered.

Kai gripped his weapon harder, and after another minute, he charged at him, with a battle cry.

The whole place erupted into chaos before my very eyes as skeletons and ninja clashed.

Before I knew what was happening, a skeleton charged at me, with his mace, and I barely managed to dodge the attack. It swung at me again, and I ducked, backing away from it.

This isn't any good. I have to start fighting. The next time it swung, I brought my blade up to meet it. There was the clank of metal, as they hit, and I swung my foot from under, tripping it.

How to kill a skeleton?!

This guy had no flesh, and the only way to do it was to...

I brought my blade down, separating his head from his body, and he lay still on the ground. Feeling a tiny burst of confidence, I looked around, trying to find my next target. It shouldn't be too complicated after this.

I rushed into battle, quickly managing to dismember several more of those things, before spotting Cole throwing the Scythe to Kai.

I guess they only wanted the weapon, and not us but they were going to kill for it.

Kai tossed it to Jay who threw it to Zane.

"Callie!" he screamed at me, chucking it in my direction. My hand reached up for it, but someone grabbed it and twisted it back. Pain shot up through my arm, as Samukai grabbed me holding a knife to my throat.

"Hey don't-" Cole was quickly tackled to the ground, which kept him distracted. Jay sprinted for the weapon which had clattered to the ground, scooped it up, and sheathed it.

Zane ran up, but stopped and grabbed Kai.

"Hey, idiot, let me go!" he yelled.

"Are you trying to get her killed?!" he shouted back. "He has a knife to her throat!"

"Let me handle this!"

"No-"

I was suddenly thrown to the ground, which knocked the breath from me. I turned quickly to see that Lauren had snuck up on him, shoved him to the ground and was now running away as fast as possible.

Samukai launched a knife at her, but Cole tackled her to the ground and it missed by an inch.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Zane asked hurriedly as he looked over me, trying to check for

"Hey, hey," I grabbed him by the shoulders. "I'm fine. Just a little scared, that's all."

I heard him breathe a sigh of relief which was quickly cut short as he was kicked to the ground.

Before I could stop him, Samukai grabbed him by the collar, pulled him up, and pulled down his mask and hood, revealing his identity.

"Let him go!" I screamed, charging at him with my weapon. He grabbed it but didn't do anything. He just held it there, and his attention seemed to be on my half-brother.

He looked genuinely surprised. "You," he murmured. Then, he hardened. "You! I thought you were gone for good!"

"What are you-"

He grabbed his neck, squeezing the air out of him.

"No!" I pushed harder, but that didn't do any good.

"I thought I got rid of you!" With each word, his grip tightened.

"Stop!" I shrieked, yanking my weapon from his grasp, and swinging it again.

This time, he caught it and looked at me. He threw me down without releasing his grip on his throat and tore off my mask and pulled down my hood.

"And you too!" He glared at me and kicked the weapon away from me. "You somehow came back! I swear to it, I will put you back in your place before you try anything else!"

He grabbed my collar, making me scream in terror. That guy was way more menacing up close.

Zane gasped and clawed at the hand that was clamped over his neck, his eyes shut in pain. "Let...her...go..."

Samukai looked back, rage burning in his eyes. He released me but tightened his grip even further. But then, he smiled. It was the kind that sent shivers up my spine. His eyes glittered with delight, and his smile was a sadistic one.

"I'll enjoy throttling you in front of her. She will watch your life being choked out of you by my hands, and I will take pleasure in your pain."

"Let him go!" I turned to see Jay running at him with full speed only to have his third arm reach out and grab his weapon. Lauren swung her ax at him, but he somehow caught that too. Cole jumped up, and he dangled him by the leg.

Someone screamed, and I turned just in time to see Kai barrel towards him and hack his katana into his ribs. The impact knocked all of us down. I expected him to come up and start fighting again, but he just stared at me, with a horrified expression on his face.

Then, the king of the skeleton army shouted to retreat. Every single one of them ran back through the exit as if they were being drained out of the whole place.

I rushed over to Zane who was gasping and coughing violently on the ground. I helped him sit up, and he leaned against me, clutching his neck. There was a bruise where Samukai had choked him, and it was in the shape of a handprint.

"Oh my gosh!"

He swallowed hard, trying to catch his breath. "I'm-I'm okay..." He broke off and coughed a little more. "No really, I'm-" He stopped suddenly, and slowly, his eyes grew wide with terror.

"Zane, what are you-" As fast as lightning, he tackled me to the floor just as an arrow made of stone flew past my head, cutting through my hair.

I whipped around, coming face to face to with a brown, burly dragon.

It roared at us angrily and swung his tail at us while shooting stone arrows out of his mouth. I scrambled up. and ducked behind a huge stone rock just as I heard the arrows hitting it.

"We have to get to the exit," he said.

"No shit."

The exit was on the other side of the cave, but seeing what we were looking at, the dragon stomped its way over there and spat out dirt, which piled up and completely sealed it. There was no other way out, and my heart sank a little.

We were trapped inside.

"What do we do now?" I asked frantically.

He looked around the cave and thought for a moment. He wasn't terrified or scared or any of that. He was calm. _How can he be so calm?!_

Kai suddenly crashed into me, bringing us to the ground.

"I got the Scythe," he panted. "I'm going to use it."

"What?! Sensei said no!"

"It's our only way out of here!"

"Let Cole use it!"

"Callie." My half-brother put his hand on my shoulder. "He has it now, and he can't run back over there to give it to him. There's no time."

"Alright. Lauren found a weak spot over there." He pointed across the cave in front of us, and at the ceiling. The exit that was blocked was to our right.

Zane nodded. "I'll keep him distracted." He pulled up his hood and mask, then, turned to me. "Callie, you get to the other side of the cave with Kai and tell them. I'll see you guys at the top."

"What?! No-"

Before I could finish, he dashed off, scooping up a katana which lay on the floor, and Kai was pulling me out from our little hiding place, Scythe in hand.

Someone whistled behind me. "Hey! You...thing! Over here!" I looked back, and to my horror, he threw the katana at the dragon, but with a swing of his tail, it smacked the weapon back towards him. He dove off to the side, and the katana hit the wall behind him.

Lauren pulled me down with her. "What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing?!" she hissed at me.

"Kai's going to use the Scythe to get out of here. Tell Jay and Cole. Zane's coming after he-"

I heard someone crying out in pain, and I jumped up.

The dragon had swung its tail at him a little too fast, which threw him against the wall, knocking the breath out of him.

I sprinted for him, and the huge thing sucked in air, ready to shoot some more arrows at him. My heart pounded, and my head screamed for me to run faster, but this is as fast as I could get. I'm not even halfway across the cave when the thing shot the arrows from his mouth.

"No!"

Zane gathered up enough energy to slam his fist into the ground, as the arrows came for him.

Ice shot up from the floor like a shield, and the arrows embedded themselves into it. I reached the wall of ice and found him gasping and sputtering on the ground, clutching at his stomach as he tried to catch his breath.

"Hey! Hey." I fell down to my knees next to him and shook him gently. "We have to go, c'mon!"

He lay there for a few more seconds. "The thing was strong," he groans.

"C'mon!" I slung his arm over my shoulder and tried to get him up.

"Agh!" he whispers, straining his voice. He squeezed my shoulder a little too hard.

"Sorry, sorry. Do you think we can make it back to the other side of the cave?"

He didn't answer but stared in front of us. I looked ahead, and to my shock and surprise, Jay, Kai, and Cole spun into a tornado, each the color of their Element. Lauren shrieked a little as the bright blue tornado picked her up, and carried her through the exit in the ceiling. The rest of them followed, and the only ones left were me and Zane.

The dragon roared again, as we tried desperately to limp our way to the ceiling. If that hole is clogged up again, we're as good as dead.

He suddenly squeezed my shoulder tighter than before. "Callie." His voice trembled a little, but his eyes told me a different story. He was determined to get out alive, and there seemed to be a little spark that fueled him to go on.

"What? What are you going to do?" My voice rose in a panic.

"Hey. Calm down," he tells me softly. "Just trust me."

I gulped and turned to find him looking straight into my eyes. Somehow, I knew that I had no other choice than to let him do what he has to do. "Alright."

He nodded. "Let go."

"What?!"

"Trust me."

Hesitantly, I let go of him, and he staggered a bit. The dragon behind us roared, and Zane threw his hand back, ice shooting out of it. The wall of ice was thick enough to give us more time. He stumbled forward and rushed over.

"No. I got it."

I stood back, my heart pounding in my head. How are we going to get out of this one alive?! His eyes closed, and his body relaxed. His hands fell to his side, and his breathing eased.

It was like he was waiting, or tapping into something from within himself. Then, suddenly, he twisted around, and turned into a white tornado before my eyes. I stared in shock at him, as he struggled to keep that up.

"How did you-"

The dragon breathed rock and dirt at us, breaking the wall, but in the next second, the tornado came and swept me up. I expected to fly around in the chaos but instead, I was holding onto something, or rather, someone.

I looked up and found my half-brother trying to get us both out alive.

It roared again, and chased after us in pursuit, shooting arrows out of its mouth. Each time, the tornado sucked it in, and either fired it back or deflected it.

Sweat rolled down from his forehead, as he clung on to me, fearing that if loosens his grip on me, then he would lose the girl he had been searching for years, forever, again.

The tornado started to flicker out, just as we were almost at the exit.

"Come on, you can do it!" I shouted at him.

His tornado started to fade a little more.

"Zane, don't you dare fucking go now!" I screamed at him. I meant to encourage him but I don't think heard me. "Come on, I believe in you!" As cheesy as that was, I still couldn't help saying it, but he made it worth it.

In a last attempt to get us out, his tornado returned brighter than ever, as we were lifted off the ground using a slant in the wall as leverage, and flew through the opening in the ceiling.

We weren't fast enough. The dragon breathed rock and dirt again, clogging the hole which literally shoved us out of it and shot us a few meters into the air. We both hit the ground, knocking out our breaths. I regained it quickly, but he didn't.

Having just been smacked into a wall from the tail of an Earth Dragon didn't help either. I ran to his side and tried to get him to sit up.

"Did...it..." he whispers. He broke off and gasped, but through that, he smiled weakly. Then, he coughed and couldn't stop. He gasped a little, but his breathing eased a little more. A bruise in the shape of a handprint was tattooed on his neck.

"Yeah, you did do it," I replied.

I tried to get him up and managed to stand a little with my support. He looked a little pale, but other than that, he was calm and collected like always. But I could tell there was something else in his eyes.

"Come on," Lauren says. "We have to get back before dark."

We started making our way back, and he and I fell back behind the group due to what happened to him in there.

"Are you okay?" I asked. "I mean, you took a good beating back there."

"Nothing...it's just that...this is the first time someone ever came back for me. If you weren't there, well I think that they all would have left me behind."

"And then I would have booted their asses to the moon."

He smiled. "I'm glad you found me, Zane. After all this time."

He nodded. "Yeah, but something tells me that there's going to be a long road ahead of us. And I don't think it would be easy."

"I'm not expecting it to be." I squeezed his hand. "It'll be okay."


	4. On Thin Ice

Hey guys! Sorry for not updating as much. There was a lot of homework that had been piling up, and on top of that, I'm in theatre and I have a band concert coming up! Highschool amiright? Also, I'm like working on like three other books. One is posted on Wattpad called Warrior of Ice (A Ninjago Fanfic). Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

. . .

"Are you cold out here?"

I looked around me, staring in wonder and amazement as the huge icebergs and glaciers floated by. The icy wind blew gently on my face and hair as if it were caressing and holding me. Didn't want that to sound too creepy though. I liked the way it felt. The whole place was beautiful.

The boat we were on was a small one, but it worked and that was all it mattered to Sensei. I looked at Zane and shivered slightly. "No," I lied. I felt something on my back. As if there was a presence behind me, and I whipped around, my heart beating a little faster.

"Why do you always look back?" he asks.

"Because I always feel like they're watching us. Waiting. I feel like they could attack us again at any time." I shifted closer to him and he puts an arm around me.

Sensei gave us a week to rest up after the Earth Dragon Disaster. That was what the others called it. We got what we needed, but was it really worth risking our lives for the Scythe? Zane and I almost died in there and he was injured again.

Occasionally, it hurt for him to breathe, and often, he needed to go lie down because his head hurt. Lauren tried to come back for me, Jay said. She couldn't leave her best friend to die especially by a dragon.

No one thought of coming back for him.

If I hadn't run back across the cavern to get him out, his grave would have been inside there.

Looking back on it, I didn't know that I had that much courage cooped up inside of me.

Sensei was fuming by the time we got back to the Monastery. He berated us for using the Scythe when we shouldn't have and that we needed to think more clearly. I was angry because no one cared about my half-brother but me.

I was more than mad that they hadn't even mentioned him. He, who had risked his life to get us all out of there, he, who nearly died in there had it not been for me who was the only one who came back for him.

"Are you still mad?" he asks quietly.

I nodded, crossing my arms as I leaned against the railing. "I'm angry at all of them. Even Lauren. Actually, I'm kind of angry at the world we both live in right now."

"Why?"

"You know why!" I exasperated, shoving him away a little.

He just gave me a confused but concerned look. "I don't know," he says, shaking his head.

I sighed in frustration and went back to having my arms crossed on the railing. "You and I, we're both outcasts. If what

that man said was true, then that meant that no one would have cared about us."

He raised a brow, not quite catching on. "I'm not following."

"There must have been witnesses, Zane!" I say, throwing my hands up to the sky. "There must have been somebody other than the man who saw how those monsters tore us apart! There must have been someone else who saw how you got stabbed!"

He didn't talk, trying to make sense of what I was saying, and his hand was on his chin, indicating that he didn't zone out on me. Good. That would have made me even angrier.

"They must have seen all of this, and what do you think they did?" I asked, pointing a finger at him. "What did they do? Other than the man who took you in? Tell me!"

"...They did nothing."

"Nothing! You're right! They didn't do anything! They didn't come out with knives or pitchforks or at least scream for them to stop! Nothing!"

"But Callie, might it not be they didn't come out to help because they were afraid?"

"You have a point but what about all those times you slept in the streets? What about how no one gave a flying shit about you?" I groaned, and grabbed my hair, running my hand through it.

"The thing is, it's like that in my world too. There are homeless people in the streets. No one gives a damn. The rich and powerful benefit from the poor. The working class is being taken advantage of. Middle-class families are losing money.

Students are dropping out of colleges because of the tuitions, and they've decided to live on minimum wage. When all of this is over, what will be left for us?"

His eyes widen as he hears all the faults in my world. Planet Earth.

"What, you thought it was perfect?" I snapped.

"I thought your world would be a bit better than my own. I-I never knew this."

I sighed. It was a bit hard to get frustrated with him. "You never asked," I repeated.

He squeezed my hand tight. "When this is over, what are you planning to do?"

That took me by surprise. Damn. I wasn't expecting that and I haven't thought about how I was going to tell him but in a fit of irrational panic, I confessed.

"I'm going to go back to my world, as terrible as it is," I replied, then immediately clamped my hand over my mouth.

His face fell, and his posture dropped. He let go of my hand and stepped back away from me, and I could almost see his heart dropping to his feet. I took a step forward and grabbed his hand, not finished.

"Come with me!" I say, shaking his arm. "Zane, come with me! I don't want you to be alone anymore!"

I let all the hope and despair I had flood into my eyes, wondering if that will convince him.

His expression changed, and I could tell he was thinking about it. Finally, "No."

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, Callie. This is my home. As terrible as it is like you said."

"What?" I felt myself breaking into two. I heard my voice being tinged with pain. "Come on, you have to come back with me!" I begged, like a six-year-old throwing a tantrum.

He just stared at me with pain in his eyes not knowing what to say.

"Come on! Please! You know what? It gets lonely there too! Come with me!"

He shook his head and shut his eyes. "This is my home. America is yours. I'm sorry. We are both from different worlds." He sighed. "I wish it wasn't that way."

"You said you found me! After years of searching, and you found me! Now you want to lose me again?!"

"I won't lose you."

"What?! Don't give me that corny ass shit! Of course, you'll lose me!"

The ship suddenly stopped, making us both lurch forward. I tripped and fell onto the wooden floor almost scraping my knee. I pushed myself up, finding that the ship had landed on a flat sheet of ice that stretched for miles around.

"We're here," Sensei said grimly. Then he turns to me. "You and Lauren are ready to come with them. I trust that your half-brother trained you well?"

"Yeah," I say bitterly. "As well as someone who got smacked into the wall by a Dragon could."

"Sometimes you've got to let things go, Callie." His voice softened. "Sometimes you've got to let go to save someone you care about."

"Maybe I'll figure out what you mean by that later on," I snapped.

"Guys!" Jay's voice called out for us to hurry up and join them.

I turned around, pulling up my mask and hood, and stormed past him.

"Damn, I'll make sure to keep away from your bad side," he commented.

"Too bad you already are."

"What?! What did I do?!" he protested.

"You know very well what you did!" I snapped. "Now shut up, and let's hurry up with this."

I hopped down the boat and joined up with the others. "It's cold out here," I murmured.

"Follow me," my half-brother says.

We started walking down the sheet of ice, and before long, the boat and the sea behind us completely disappeared. The wind was picking up, blowing up the snow that lay on the ground. I looked up, finding that the sheet of ice grew narrower until it formed a single path, big enough to fit only one car if someone were to drive through it. The ice curved upwards slightly, but it wasn't enough to make us all slip. It made it harder to go uphill though.

The snow crunched under our feet and the cold wind pelted bits of snow at our faces. By then, I was freezing and shivered a little too much.

Zane didn't seem bothered by this at all.

"We should be getting close to it by now," he said as a matter of factly.

How close? I'm freezing to death here!

Ahead, I spotted the silhouette of a large cavern in the distance.

"Another cave?!" Kai exclaimed. "Last time, we almost died in there!"

I gave him a death glare, as we hurried inside.

"You didn't almost die in there!" I hissed. "We did!" I punched him, and he rubbed the spot where I hit him.

"Ow," he whined.

"Shut up!"

Ice surrounded us distorted our images in their reflections as we passed by. Icicles stuck up from the ground dangerously, as we entered the main room.

It wasn't a room. The whole place looked similar to the Earth Cave except this was all made of ice.

In the middle of the room, were two golden shurikens that floated above a high pedestal. It wasn't in the shape of a dragon this time, and I felt relief flooding into me, but I couldn't let my guard down.

He starts making his way towards it, but I stopped him.

"No, wait. What if there's another dragon waiting to kill us?"

"Then I'll grab it, and we'll run for it."

I huffed. "Don't die."

He reached for the Golden Weapon again. As soon as he touched it, he flinched and let out a strangled cry in pain.

"Zane?"

He collapsed to the floor, and I ran forward. My heart raced. "Zane?!" He shivered violently, and his eyes were closed. Then suddenly, from the Shuriken he was holding, a thick sheet of ice grew and spread until it covered his whole body, encasing him in a block of ice.

"No, no, no!" I screamed.

The Shurikens were stuck in his hand, and I tried to pry them off. He literally felt like ice, and my hands slipped over him easily, making it hard for me to keep him still.

The ceiling shook and trembled, releasing a few icicles. I clung on to him, trying to use my body as a shield, but luckily, they fell around me. I heard the sound of them stabbing into the ground. Next time, I wouldn't be so lucky. We had to get out of there. And fast.

Cole looked at the frozen teen that I was holding, and I saw a lightbulb clicked in his head.

"What?!" I roared.

"Ice on ice can travel faster!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I figured out what he was trying to say moments later.

"No!" I scream angrily. "You are not using him as a human bobsled, you hear me?!"

"It's the only way out!"

"No it's-"

He suddenly tossed me a pair of ice skates. "Where-" He cut me off. "Your brother wanted you to have it in case something happened!" He yells, grabbing him, and sliding him over to the others.

I hurriedly shoved them on.

"Cole Brookstone, you get the hell off of him at once!"

"I'm sorry Callie!"

The ceiling shook again, releasing another set of icicles towards us, and they kicked off.

"Cole Brookstone!" I shrieked. "I'm going to fucking murder you if we get back alive!"

They slid down the hill, screaming their heads off as they went, and I was about to follow when a crash behind me rocketed me forward, giving me a boost.

There was a roar, and icicles raced past me, missing by an inch.

I shoved myself as hard as I could and went after them, my heart pounding. At least I didn't have to ride on my half-brother. Thank goodness Zane gave me these skates.

I was about to reach the exit when the dragon blew on it and covered it up in ice. I turned around and faced it.

This one looked more like a dragon. It was white, slender, and its tail was made out of icicles turning them into spikes. It spread out its wings and blew out snow, and ice. I dove to the side, and its frozen breath followed me.

I needed to get out of here. This wasn't how I wanted to die.

It whipped its tail around, and I managed to narrowly avoid it. My eyes searched the cavern for any other way out. My eyes spotted a small hole at the other end of the cavern, and my heart pounded.

I just needed to get over there.

I skated around it as fast as I could. I had to beat him to it. It's hard for me to turn especially with these skates on. I went full speed at the wall of the cave, and then, I threw a grabbling hook. It latched onto its leg, swinging me around just before I hit the wall, and tripped him in the process.

I swung around, then landed near the hole. I skated over to it quickly and ducked inside. I looked around inside the hole, and my heart sank.

There was no where to go.

Then I looked up.

My hands reached for something to grip on, and thankfully, it latched onto a ledge. With the adrenaline coursing through me, my hand reached for another, and another, slowly pulling myself higher. My foot slipped, making me yelp before I hugged the wall of ice, my heart pounding more ferociously inside of me. I had to keep going.

The hole at the top was growing wider. I had to get to it.

Finally, I reached the top, and hoisted myself up, right into the middle of a raging blizzard. Great. I limped, trying to find my way out of the place. The snow came up to my knees making it extra hard to move. I tried to contain my tears as the cold wind blew at my face. My mind flashed back to when there was a blizzard at home...

. . .

"Somebody help me!"

The wind tore at my face. The snow blew into my eyes, bringing out tears.

"Please!" I shrieked.

. . .

"Somebody help me!" This was hopeless. There was no one around. Not this time. And now, I'm going to die here. It seemed as if there was some sort of black hole that had opened up inside of me that swallowed every feeling I had. Now, I was empty and filled with despair. I could give up. That would be easier.

Then, my feet moved. Why? I pushed forward, through the blizzard, fighting. But why?

I remembered that my half-brother was hurt and in need of someone. He had been searching for that someone for years.

And now, he finally found me. That's why. How could I be so selfish, and only think of myself? What would my death do to him? He would have never known if I was his real sister or not, and that would bring him pain all over again.

And I hated that. But that is why I kept going.

I gritted my teeth and kept pushing, fighting the storm, in an aimless direction. It seemed like an eternity and no one was there to help me this time. I needed to help myself.

Finally, I came to an edge, and looked down. This must be where we had entered from. I kicked down some snow, and jumped. The snow softened my impact, and I quickly got up.

The wind tore at my face, as I skated downhill, trying to go faster and faster until I couldn't anymore. The ship came into view quicker than I had anticipated, and I dug my heels into the ice, sending shavings and snow everywhere, as I tried to stop myself from going into the icy water.

I was slowing down, but not fast enough. Then, I spotted a huge snow pile and tried my best to steer myself over to it. I crashed into it, and dug my way out hurriedly, trying not to think of how cold I was.

I ran shivering, up the ramp, just as Sensei pulled it up, and steered the ship away from land. I rushed inside, finding Kai trying to thaw out Zane's head. That was working but it wasn't enough, and my worry and concern for him overwhelmed my need for warmth myself. I shook and trembled from the cold, but that didn't stop me from holding his icy hand. I clasped it between my own and tried to melt away some of the ice. He was unconscious, and the Golden Weapons were still in his hand.

He was shivering violently, as Kai tried to thaw out more of him. He couldn't summon a fire and could only turn his hands hot. I laid his head on my lap, holding him.

I managed to pry the other Golden Shuriken from his hand, and right at that moment, his eyes opened.

"Zane!"

His breathing was ragged and trembled from the cold. "C-Callie?!" he stammered. Then, he looked down, finding Kai's hands on his chest. "What's going on?!"

I squeezed his hand. "You were frozen in a block of ice the second you touched those weapons. We're trying to get the ice off of you."

After a few more seconds of hyperventilating, I managed to get him to sit up and I made him lean against me.

"But I'm too heavy," he protested.

"No you're not, now let me hold you."

He was colder than I could ever imagine, and I gripped his shoulder more tightly. There was a small distinct feeling that I could lose him to this. And I didn't want to.

"Callie?" he said again, quietly.

"Yeah?" I whispered.

"Why do you want to go back to your world?"

Again, one of his questions left me speechless for a good few moments. Why did I want to go back? After all, I could just stay here right? I could just stay here with Zane, and we can go through the things we go through together. Slowly, an answer formed inside my head. I just needed to figure out how to say it.

"Because I want to go back and fix it. I want to change my world. Make it better for the ones growing up. If I could do anything to help make a difference, then I'm happy."

He smiled weakly at me and squeezed my hand back.

"Why do you want to stay?" I asked.

He hesitated to answer me, but seeing the intent look on my face, he started. "I found out only days ago that I'm bound by a prophecy. It said that I need to help destroy an evil entity that even Sensei doesn't know of. I need to fulfill that. If I don't, then my world would be destroyed."

My eyes widened.

"Even if I try to escape it, it will pull me back. There's no way out of this for me, Callie."

"But then that means I'm in this too."

He looked up at me with something else in his eyes. "Yes," he says quietly. "And I want to protect you from whomever may want to hurt you."

I squeezed his hand. "You don't have to. I'll learn how to fight. But that's not the reason why you want to stay, don't you?"

He raised a brow, wondering how I had managed to see through him. "Like you, I want to stay behind and fix my world. I want to help those who are left on the streets to die, and give them a second chance. Like I was given one."

He suddenly shivered violently, and gritted his teeth.

"Zane?!"

"You understand, don't you?"

I nodded. I did understand. I guess we were not so different. We had the same set of morals, values, and purpose. And given how close we had become over the course of three weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if we were real siblings.

"I'm glad, Callie. I' glad that someone can understand me for once."

"What do you mean?"

"They would say that I can't help everyone. But if I can do anything to make a difference…" he repeated. "Then I'll be happy."

This brought on a smile, as I looked down at the boy who was leaning against my shoulder.

My eyes felt droopy. I hadn't gotten any real sleep ever since I got here. Especially not after Zane got hit. And this was slowing me down. Should I go to my bed and get some rest? Or should I stay? He's hurt, again. Is this what life is going to be like from now on?

Before I could make my decision, the world faded away into darkness.

. . .

When I woke up, I didn't open my eyes. Something or someone was holding me, and stroking my hair.

"Hold on, I'm almost done with your other leg." I recognized Kai's voice.

"Kai?"

"Yeah?"

"Did she make it here with you guys, or did you leave her behind?" There was an icy tone to his voice. It was cold, and the

room seemed to have dropped several degrees.

Kai stammered. "Uh...well...you see…"

"So you left her behind, again," Zane stated coldly.

"...Yes."

I could almost see Kai sweating nervously.

"You left my sister behind so you could save yourselves."

"Ah, well…"

"Is that correct?"

"Yes," Kai murmured.

He sighed in frustration and kept petting my hair in silence. "Kai?" he says quietly.

"Yeah, Mr. Weirdo?"

I was just about ready to smack him for calling my half-brother that.

"Is this...is this what it is like to have a sister? Is this what it is like to have a family?" He asked it in such a way that I swore I felt myself tearing up a little. I kept my eyes closed, still listening.

"What do you mean?"

"Did she look worried when she saw me? Like this?"

"Yeah, man. She went pale real quick. All the color drained from her face, and I could literally see the panic in her eyes."

"Does that mean she cares about me?"

"Yeah. When you have someone like that, you should never let go of them. Not ever."

"Maybe you're right. I won't let go of her. Not again. Unless she wants me to."

"I'm glad you found her."

He squeezed my hand. "I am too."


	5. Jay's Wings

I felt the tingling sensation of Zane's touch as he clipped a small square onto my back.

"How does it feel?" he asks.

"Well is it secure?"

"Yes."

"Then it's good."

"Alright," he says, pulling me up from the floor, turning to the others. "You guys ready?"

"Uhm..." Kai was struggling to get that thing on his back.

I sighed and took the square from him. "Here." I clipped it onto the little hook that Jay and Zane managed to glue on with a hot glue gun.

The little squares were wings that folded up inside the thing. Jay pulled off two all-nighters in a row to get it working right. After that, he presented his invention to us, ending with-

"Now please shut up for a little while longer and take a look at my forty-eight hour, cookies 'n cream coffee induced blueprint and working model that I have taken down and rebuilt over four times that works better than the pair I made, that made me crash into the billboard where Sensei found me and started this wondrous life of battling a terrifying skeleton general with an unusually shaped head who has four arms, a terrifying army of undead bones and a not at all horrific, evil, underground, corrupted warlord who has daddy issues. Please have a look!"

He was about to collapse from lack of sleep and exhaustion so we sent him to bed immediately. After Renna escorted him out of the room (with Jay leaning on her completely) we took a look at it.

It worked well which surprised us all, and we actually thought that it was pretty cool.

But none of us knew if those things were actually safe.

"Where are we even going if we're going to be needing these?" Cole mumbles to himself.

"You will all be going to the Floating Ruins. There, you will receive the third Golden Weapon," Sensei answered. Then, he looked straight at Kai, glaring at him. "Only Jay may touch it."

And now, I have even more questions than when I first arrived in the world.

When he turned around to head back inside the ship, I lowered my voice. "You should work with someone, Kai. If you keep going off by yourself, then either you or one of us will get hurt."

"I think I do pretty well on my own," he scoffed.

"Ha. Did you think you could put this on by yourself?" I ask as I secured the square onto him. I shook it to make sure it didn't come off, and I let go of him.

He sighed. "Good point."

I leaned against the trunk of a tree, admiring the view. Birds chirped as they flew into the treetops, as the wind rustled through the leaves. The gentle breeze was cold, but kind, and reminded me of home.

Home...

When I closed my eyes, the touch of the wind washed over me with my emotions. This brought me back to the cold autumns at home, where I would stand outside, raking leaves, all alone. It was quiet and beautiful and these little things made me happy.

"Hey, Callie?" he murmurs.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

Immediately, I froze in my spot, and my smile faded away. I stood up and faced him, wondering what he said.

"Come again?"

"I'm sorry for leaving you and Zane behind in the cave," he says, running his hand through his dark brown hair.

I felt my eyes widening and something inside of me stirring.

"And I'm sorry I left you behind again in the ice cave and used your brother as a sled," he says, as he rushed to apologize. He sighed looking ashamed of himself as he crossed his arms, rubbing his elbows.

I've never seen this side of him before. But there are different personalities to everyone, right? Not to mention that he was the first one to apologize for leaving us behind.

"Thank you for your apology. You're the first one. And," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. "I'll forgive you. But, don't let it happen again."

He smiled a little in relief. "I won't." He glanced at Zane. "You know, he told me he cares a lot about you."

"Yeah. He told me that too."

He tilted his head to the side a little and raised a brow. "You know, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but he's a little weird."

"What do you mean?" I inquired, crossing my arms.

But he didn't get the hint. "Jay told me that when he, Cole, and Zane met for the first time, they were given ninja suits. They all put it on, but Zane," he sighed. "Oh, man."

"What did he do?"

"He had no idea what it was and put the mask on top of his head like a hood, and let it hang loose like that. And he kind of never talks to us as well. He's quiet and...weird."

As soon as he finished the last word, I punched his arm. Hard. How dare he?!

"Ow!"

I stepped into his personal space and got up all in his face, crossing my arms. "You shut your mouth you little-"

"Callie?" I felt cold hands on my shoulder, and turned around, finding Zane standing behind me. "What's the problem?" he asks, cluelessly.

"N-nothing!" I stammered, though I knew he just saved Kai from another punch to his other arm. I put on my best fake smile, which worked (Thanks, mom!) and even Kai bought it.

"We're leaving now," he says innocently. "Make sure you watch and learn. Then you and Renna will be able to do Spinjitzu. Okay?" He turns around with my hand in his. As soon as he did, I hooked my leg behind Kai's and kicked him in such a way so that he fell over.

"Hey!" I heard him cry. "I'm sorry! Again!"

I rolled my eyes as we kept walking. He led me away from the small camp we had made so that the trees hid us from their view.

"What are we doing here?"

"Look what I got," he replied, taking out something that was folded. He snapped it open, and it took the shape of a bow.

"Woah."

The bow was plain white, shiny, and looked like it was brand new and expensive. The string was pitch black, and strong. It was pretty, and it went from his head to thighs, making it look as if it belonged to someone who was very important.

"Sensei gave this to me without anyone else knowing. He says I shouldn't use it yet because I have my Golden Weapon," he says, looking at the bow in his hands. "but I don't exactly want to let it collect dust...so..." He looks up at me and holds it out to me.

My goodness, I have been blessed with the sweetest half-brother ever. "Zane I-I couldn't..."

"Well why not?" he says, smiling at me. "Here-" He raised my arm, put the bow in my hand, and put my other one on the string. Then, he strung an arrow, and got close to me, helping me pull back.

"Aim," he muttered, concentrating on a target I couldn't see.

"Aim," I repeated after him, though I still didn't know where he was pointing at.

"And now...release..."

I let my fingers go from the string and the arrow shot off. The next thing I knew, it hit a tree far away, with a smack.

"This is..." I started, but I couldn't finish.

"Amazing?" he says. "Take this. I want you to have it."

"Zane? Calissa?" An old voice broke through the trees and I turned around. "It's time to go."

Zane quickly helped me snap it back and I put it in his pockets.

. . .

"My feet hurt!" Lauren whined, hopping from foot to foot. "Are we there yet?"

Jay sighed, as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "No, unfortunately."

"We are almost," my half-brother replied calmly.

We were walking in the woods, in which the trees were way too big for my liking. I didn't like things that were too big because it made me feel small. Small and powerless. I feared it.

Awesome. Now I'm afraid of trees.

They were humongous and the leaves nearly blocked out the sun, but we kept pushing through.

Lauren had on a white ninja suit similar to Zane's but it was a bit lighter. Sensei told us our Elements and that we each needed to learn how to control it. Otherwise, if the Skeletons somehow figured out how to use it to their advantage, we would be taken down in the blink of an eye.

An Element was a power inside of us. Some were born with it. Others, the power was passed on from generation to generation. Which left me wondering how on earth I got mine.

Did it have something to do with where we came from?

I sighed and kicked a rock into the bushes when suddenly, someone grabbed my shoulder and stopped me.

"Do you hear that?!" Cole whispered, clearly in a panicked state.

"Hear wha-"

That question was answered for me when I heard the sound of a twig snapping in the bushes. Our group froze in place, and so did my eyes apparently. The sound terrified me so much, that I stopped looking around and stared straight ahead instead.

I felt someone's hands slipping into my own, which snapped me out of the trance quickly. My hand reached down for my knife and saw Zane moving back to cover me.

Then there was the sound of a thousand feet pounding against the dirt behind us, and the worse thing was that the sound was drawing closer. Again, I froze to my spot, and couldn't move, my hand was halfway down to the dagger in my sheath, and I didn't dare look back.

Jay uttered one word, and it came out in a trembling whisper of fear.

"Run."

He grabbed Lauren's hand, as he broke into a sprint. "Run! Run!" he shouted.

We took off running as fast as we could, as my heart pounded violently against my chest. Adrenaline coursed through my whole body, urging me to go faster still, and I knew I couldn't stop. Zane's grip on my hand tightened and through the wind rushing by my ears and the pounding of the footsteps, I managed to make out a couple of words coming from him.

"Trust me!"

I debated on whether or not I should let him do his thing internally as I heard myself gasping for air. He could get hurt again. But he saved me once before, back in that cave when he turned himself into a tornado and got us out of there. Speaking of which, Lauren and I couldn't do the tornado thing yet which might render us both helpless given the situation we were in. Turning into a tornado could help us go faster and that's what the others did. I looked at Zane, wondering if he was going to do the same thing, but he didn't

Could it be that it was because he was still too weak to do it after what happened back in the caves?

Trust him. He said I needed to trust him. I didn't know what I was thinking then, but I squeezed his hand, telling him that I had his back.

I thought I saw him smile a little. "Hold on tight, Callie."

The second after he uttered my name, he pulled me in so close to him so that I was hugging him, and transformed into a white, ice-filled tornado, taking me with him. Though the material around us was spinning, we were facing straight ahead at all times, and unfortunately, I saw exactly where we were going.

If he doesn't veer off its path, we're going to crash into a tree.

"Zane-"

"Trust me."

Shit. I held him tighter and shut my eyes. We're going to die. We're going to die. Oh my goodness, we're going to-

Suddenly. I felt myself tipping backward so I opened my eyes. That was a big mistake. As soon as I opened them, I immediately regretted it and wished with every ounce of my being that we weren't really going up the trunk of a tree and hopping from branch to branch.

"Shut your eyes, Callie," he replies calmly.

I gritted my teeth and did as he told, as he kept jumping for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, I felt us falling through the air, and I cracked open my eyes just a tiny bit to see what was going on. We landed on the ground harder than we would've have liked and lay there on the grass, gasping and sputtering. I could still feel my heart beating ferociously in my chest as he pulled me up.

"Zane, you scared the living shit out of me!"

His cheeks flushed and looked down. "Sorry," he mumbled.

We quickly joined up with the others farther down the field and up ahead, there was a huge mountain. In the shape of a nunchuck. The side was literally vertical, and to be honest, I didn't know how the hell we would be able to get up to the top.

"So...who wants to go first?" Jay asks.

Cole stepped up. "You gotta find the little cracks and dig your nails and toes into it. Also, just remember to not look down."

He pushed himself up, and little by little, he started ascending up the mountain. "Follow my lead until you get the hang of it!" he shouted down to us.

"C'mon, sis! If you fall I'll catch you!" said Jay as cheerfully as possible.

"You don't look like you're going to catch me if I do fall," Lauren retorted, but she went first anyway, and Jay immediately began climbing after her just in case.

Catching me looking at the rocks nervously, Zane grabbed my hand. "I want you to be brave. I'll catch you if you fall," he says gently. After another moment of hesitation, he said, "I promise."

I reached up reluctantly but I knew that if it were Jay that was going to catch me, I would need a hell of a lot more convincing than just "I promise." I dug my fingers into the deepest cracks I could find but when I tried to lift myself up, my foot couldn't find anything to step on. I felt Zane's hands on my waist, giving me a huge but gentle push. I ended up with my head above my hands, but I managed to find footing.

If it had been Brent who was behind me, he would have been cursing at me like a sailor for being so weak and shoving my ass up with his hands so, in a way, I was glad that he was not here to do that to me.

I looked down, and found him climbing up with me close behind, just in case I fall and heard Kai sighing. Maybe he was thinking about his own sister.

As we ascended into the sky, my hands were starting to tremble from the weight and strain on my body, and I could feel the sweat building up. With one hand, I hung on to a ledge, and with the other, I pulled down my hood and mask, feeling the relaxing sensation of cold air hitting my forehead and mouth. I bit my sleeve, and pulled that up as best I could, bit the other and did the same.

We kept climbing when there came a sound coming from below.

"Guys!" Kai screamed up at us, his voice tinged with panic. "They're after us!"

We didn't need to know who 'they' was and we climbed faster, fear, now coursing through all of our veins. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. My senses were suddenly heightened, and my eyes darted around, searching for rocks to hang on to, calculating my movements. I climbed higher into the sky, adrenaline pushing me forward.

"Zane?!" I called out.

"What's wrong?!"

"Nothing. Just wanted to make sure you were there."

An arrow flew past me missing by an inch. After that, I don't think I've ever climbed a mountain this fast in my whole life. We disappeared into the clouds, panic pushing us further, as we went. A skeleton caught up with me suddenly, and I shrieked, but it clamped a hand over my mouth.

"You're a pretty little thing," it whispered creepily into my ears. _How did it manage to slip past both Kai and Zane?!_ "It's a shame we're both on opposite sides." My heart pounded in my ears as I stared into the pitch dark holes for eyes with red pupils.

Then, it reached for the next ledge and climbed higher.

Realizing I was trembling, I tried to shake it off. I needed to be brave.

"Hey!" I shouted angrily at it. It ignored me and kept going, not even throwing a second glance back down at me. As I reached for another rock to hang onto, shaken from that encounter, it suddenly hit me like cold water.

They weren't after us. They were after the prize at the top. I pushed myself up faster, determined to beat it.

I passed Jay, who was above me, Renna, and after a while, I passed Cole, and the lone skeleton came into view. I heard some shouts from below and figured that the rest must have caught up with the others. _How?!_

It had managed to slip past all three of them, but they did notice me.

"Hey!" I yelled.

The skeleton kept climbing, but looked down, then smiled sickeningly at me with its beady little eyes, though it didn't say anything.

As I reached for the next one, catching up to it, I tried to figure out what I should scream at it next. Maybe a threat or a "You will never beat us!" or "We'll defeat you!" or something cheesy like that. I wanted to sound epic and warrior-like but all that came out of my mouth was-

"You wanna go?!"

I swear to god, the thing looked like it was about to cry laugh, but it managed to hold it in. "Go where? There isn't anyplace we could go. We're stuck up here!"

"That's not what I meant!"

It sighed, as it reached up to the next rock, hoisting itself up. "Maybe we can go when we get back down, sweetheart-"

"Don't call me that, you sick bastard!"

It laughed, making a throaty weird noise, that I deduced that only skeletons could make, and kept climbing. I reached for the next one, pulling myself up next to the not at all terrifying thing, knowing that I needed to get away from it.

"Alright, we'll go," it said to me, smiling dumbly.

"Go?" I asked, taken by surprise.

"Go."

"How?"

"Race to the top. Ready, set, go!" It yelled, racing forward towards the next rock.

"You sick little-" I didn't finish that sentence, as I reached for the next one, pushing, pulling, looking for something else to hang onto, to get myself up to the top first. It was like a game. A race.

It was the same routine over and over again. Grab, pull, grab, pull, grab, pull...

When I looked up after several more minutes of hard work, I found the skeleton a little ahead of me, and I could see the top that he was about to reach. Oh no, he won't... I needed to get there first. My team depends on me. Filled with courage and determination, I half squatted down, and then jumped.

It was a leap of faith, and my hand latched onto the platform, making me sway, and kick the skeleton's head. My heart pounded furiously, as my other hand held onto the edge, and pushed myself up.

Goddamnit, I nearly died...

Out of breath, and exhausted, I quickly crawled over to the middle, and looked up, seeing a golden weapon floating above me. There was a grunt behind me, and I reached for my knife, expecting for there to be the skeleton who I kicked in the head.

I whipped around, and found Jay, with half of his body on the platform, and the other half, hanging off the edge.

"Hey, Callie..." He groaned, reaching for me.

"Oh my-" I ran over to him, and grabbed his arm, pulling him up so that he rolled over onto the solid ground. He panted, breathing heavily, as his head turned to look at me.

"Yo, Cal."

"Don't call me that!"

"Sorry about...leaving Zane behind...back there..." he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. I sighed, looking at the brown-haired boy who no doubt, just apologized to me.

"Finally!" I exclaimed. It was about time.

"Is that an 'I forgive you?'" he asked.

"Yes. Now get up, you dummy, and grab the thing," I peeved, pulling him up.

As soon as we turned around, the skeleton rammed a weapon into his stomach, knocking them both to the ground. As Jay struggled with it, Cole jumped out of nowhere, tackled it, and brought it to the ground.

"Jay, grab it!" I shouted.

"Jay!" Renna ran to him, trying to get him to sit up.

I looked back, to find more skeletons climbing up, their eyes suddenly on me. I drew my katana, but that was about it before I froze in my spot. My heart pounded hard in my chest.

"S-stay back!" I stammered idiotically. One of them ignores my pleas, and runs up to me, raising up a blade high above its head. I screamed and brought my own up, and the metal made a clanging sound as they met.

I smacked its weapon away, lunged forward, and swung down my katana, slicing off its head. Another one comes at me, and I barely dodged a swing. I fell back, and kicked his legs, hearing the sound of its bones snap. It fell to the floor, and I kicked off the head. I whipped around, and kicked off the head of another, but lost my balance, and crashed to the ground.

"Callie!" I whipped around, just in time to see Kai jump in front of me and deflect a blade meant for my head.

I scrambled up quickly and threw a knife at the one coming from the side which missed entirely but was not at all surprising. It kept charging and that's when Zane brought it to the ground with one hit.

Another one attacked from behind, and I turned around, dodging the blade, and meeting it with my own. It blocked, deflecting it, and lunged forward. I hadn't made it more than an inch when the cold metal dug into my arm, making pain shoot up my left side.

"Callie!"

Pain. That was the only thing I felt as white-hot pain blinded me, making tears come out of my eyes. Then, it came in agonizing bursts, almost like a pulse, making me scream. I opened my eyes a little, finding the skeleton towering over me, with the weapon high above its head. My heart lept, time seemed to move in slow motion, and I couldn't have been more helpless.

A white blur lunged forward, grabbing me, and we both crashed to the ground just as the katana came crashing down. My arm throbbed like a second heartbeat, but I ignored it. The thing was coming straight for us. It pulled the weapon out of the dry dirt and came at us again. With one hand holding onto me, and the other turning into a cyan blue color, he smacked the ground. Ice shot up into the air creating a wall between us, and the katana was stabbed into it, rendering the weapon useless.

"C'mon, Callie," he pants, as he gets up. He helped me up, literally holding me upright, and if it weren't for him, I would have stayed on the ground. I gritted my teeth as another dash of pain shot through my left arm. "Oh my gods," he murmured, his eyes going wide as he stared at my wound. "We need to get back quick. Otherwise, you'll bleed out and-"

The wall of ice suddenly shattered, revealing a small group of skeletons glaring down at us. He unsheathed his katana quickly

"Spinjitsu!" Jay yelled, holding the Nunchuck of Lightning above his head. The skeletons rushed at him, but he ran towards Renna, taking out the ones blocking him from her, and grabbed her just as the blades came crashing down. "Now!"

They all turned into tornadoes, taking out skeletons left and right. Zane circled around me, taking out the rest that was attacking me in his path and tossed them over the edge stopping just as Cole stumbled into me. Jay reached the edge of the cliff, with Renna, and they jumped. Kai went next, then Cole was pushing us towards it.

"I'll cover you guys! I'm feeling some thrill rushing inside of me!" he shouted.

I grabbed Zane's hand but when I looked down, I hesitated.

Seeing that I was about to nope away from the situation at hand, he gripped my hand as if to reassure me and uttered the same words that I've become accustomed to hearing.

"Trust me!"

I pushed my legs up, and before I knew it, we were falling. There were a lot of things I felt in that moment as I was falling. But there was one main thing that I thought of as I did.

This is how I'll die...

Of course, that isn't how I'll die, but it sure felt like I was going to. The wings opened, jerking me up, and I found myself gliding through the forest. The wind rushed against my head in a gentle breeze.

It was an amazing view, and I would have even taken a picture of it if I had my phone with me, but of course, I didn't because I can't just bring a phone into the middle of a battle, can I? But the sight of it made me smile, as I relaxed a little. It reminded me of home...of Brent...

Though I was smiling, I had a death grip on my half-brother's hand.

"You wanna try letting go?" he asked politely.

"Nope," I replied, slightly terrified at the thought. But I did loosen my fingers a bit.

"Okay then. Callie, you look three shades paler."

"Don't mention it," I murmured, my hands trembling in his.

He helped me shift towards our small camp, where we crashed into the ground. The pain from the cut on my arm suddenly flared up making me yelp. Blood streamed over my hands, and I tried to not to panic.

Right then, Cole and Jay crashed to the ground, breaking their wings, and ending up in a heap on the floor. We sat there, trying to regain our breaths. My mind was racing, and my heart pounded. And I wondered, _What happened?_ and _How the hell did we survive?_

"I got the weapon!" Jay gasps, holding it up.

Tears welled up in my eyes and they came down. The warm blood coming down wasn't stopping, and Zane quickly grabbed me and picked me up.

"Sensei!" he shouted. The fear and panic in his voice were real and that was the last thing I heard before I passed out. I didn't remember anything after that.


End file.
